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We have decided to pause driverless operations across all of our fleets

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Re: We have decided to pause driverless operations across all of our fleets

#121

Post by Semaphor »

huytersd wrote: post #44
Semaphor wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've never seen a car once in my life Your forgotten word makes this comment seem like it’s from the early 1800s ;) That said, as a German, I expect to see driverless cars in 2030 the earliest ;)

Waymo is already solid. I’ve taken about two dozen rides and they feel safe and travel fast (at the speed limit). It’s here now.

Yeah, I read about that. In the comments here. But they aren’t in Germany, and I don’t expect them to arrive here for quite some time. We are very technology-conservative.

Re: We have decided to pause driverless operations across all of our fleets

#122

Post by kdmccormick »

TheDong wrote: post #108
kdmccormick wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Public transit can be solved in the US. Plenty of other countries have done it. That's why it's so exhausting that so many of our brightest minds AND the public's imagination of the future are dedicated to turning our unsustainably-car-centric cities into possibly-safer-but-still-unsustainably-car-centric cities instead of, you know, modern cities with good transit.

the fact that it's solved outside of the US is irrelevant here. the American Dream requires that each successful American owns a Car (and House, which is another reason American Cities can't be like other country's cities). they don't have to drive it, but since you have to own one, you might as well drive it, right? places like the uk, germany, china, japan, etc all have working public transit, but they don't have t…

We don't need all Americans to give up their cars. We just need fewer people to drive in urban centers.

Much of NYC, SF, Boston, DC and Chicago are already on board with this. They have been for decades.

It's wannabe-suburbanites constantly driving through dense cities that's the problem, not Chuck from rural Maine driving to the town grocery store.

Re: We have decided to pause driverless operations across all of our fleets

#123

Post by seadan83 »

dmix wrote: post #36
polalavik wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of all the tech problems to solve, driverless cars or driverless taxis has always baffled me. It’s a very complex thing to solve with a zillion edge cases. And for what net gain? What incredible inconvenience are we trying to solve? Lack of good public transit? Let’s solve that instead. Millions of cars driverless or not are not a great solution to anything.

Do we have to have this conversation in every single thread that mentions driverless cars? We get it, an extremely vocal subset of reddit/HN who lives` in downtown cities likes public transit more than cars.

If you believe that AI cars are snake-oil in a near peak hype-cycle, then there would be a real concern that that non-solution is distracting from the very real problem of how to move people at scale.

Re: We have decided to pause driverless operations across all of our fleets

#124

Post by Alacart »

stickfigure wrote: post #32
polalavik wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of all the tech problems to solve, driverless cars or driverless taxis has always baffled me. It’s a very complex thing to solve with a zillion edge cases. And for what net gain? What incredible inconvenience are we trying to solve? Lack of good public transit? Let’s solve that instead. Millions of cars driverless or not are not a great solution to anything.

Most people don't live in urban centers. Unless you plan on dismantling the suburbs, we're stuck with cars of one form or another. Taxis, driverless or otherwise, are "public transport".

I guess it depends on how you define urban (are suburbs still urban?). I think you're kind of right in that currently suburbs are terrible to live in without a car. But if there was magically a huge shift to much better public transport - would that still be the case?

Most of the world is more urban than not: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/urban-vs-rural-majority

Re: We have decided to pause driverless operations across all of our fleets

#125

Post by dventimi »

polalavik wrote: post #17
xnx wrote: post #12

This is a good move on Cruise's part. Cruise is still nowhere near the maturity level that Waymo was at when Waymo first started driving on public roads. On the other hand, we definitely need a real competitor to Waymo. It doesn't seem likely, but hopefully some combination of Cruise, Apple(?), Tesla, or another player will be able to have a feasible alternative to Waymo's Driver.

Out of all the tech problems to solve, driverless cars or driverless taxis has always baffled me. It’s a very complex thing to solve with a zillion edge cases. And for what net gain? What incredible inconvenience are we trying to solve? Lack of good public transit? Let’s solve that instead. Millions of cars driverless or not are not a great solution to anything.

Which would you rather have, a hundred million cars occupying a hundred million human drivers, or a hundred million cars with those hundred million people now free to do something else with their time?

Re: We have decided to pause driverless operations across all of our fleets

#126

Post by iancmceachern »

melling wrote: post #64
polalavik wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of all the tech problems to solve, driverless cars or driverless taxis has always baffled me. It’s a very complex thing to solve with a zillion edge cases. And for what net gain? What incredible inconvenience are we trying to solve? Lack of good public transit? Let’s solve that instead. Millions of cars driverless or not are not a great solution to anything.

“What incredible inconvenience are we trying to solve?” 40,000 deaths in the United States every year. Hundreds of thousands of costly accidents We can’t get great transportation even in the New York City area. We have 0 miles of high-speed rail, while China built 25,000 it’s great that you want to start building some mass transit, but it’ll take a century if we start now. Let’s start by having trains take you to the…

Yes, but those deaths could also be "solved" with mass transit.

Re: We have decided to pause driverless operations across all of our fleets

#127

Post by selcuka »

janalsncm wrote: post #85
melling wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“What incredible inconvenience are we trying to solve?” 40,000 deaths in the United States every year. Hundreds of thousands of costly accidents We can’t get great transportation even in the New York City area. We have 0 miles of high-speed rail, while China built 25,000 it’s great that you want to start building some mass transit, but it’ll take a century if we start now. Let’s start by having trains take you to the…

China has 25k miles of bullet trains and China accounted for a third of the cars sold in 2022. A third. This is a country that limits imports and even limits the number of drivers in some cities. So it’s silly to suggest public transit can replace cars. ETA: Replace all cars. So as long as we will have cars, we might as well make them safer. > getting self driving cars that are all electric will be a big win. I will…

> China accounted for a third of the cars sold in 2022

Yet they have almost the same number of cars as the US, with 4 times the population.

Re: We have decided to pause driverless operations across all of our fleets

#128

Post by selcuka »

melling wrote: post #64
polalavik wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of all the tech problems to solve, driverless cars or driverless taxis has always baffled me. It’s a very complex thing to solve with a zillion edge cases. And for what net gain? What incredible inconvenience are we trying to solve? Lack of good public transit? Let’s solve that instead. Millions of cars driverless or not are not a great solution to anything.

“What incredible inconvenience are we trying to solve?” 40,000 deaths in the United States every year. Hundreds of thousands of costly accidents We can’t get great transportation even in the New York City area. We have 0 miles of high-speed rail, while China built 25,000 it’s great that you want to start building some mass transit, but it’ll take a century if we start now. Let’s start by having trains take you to the…

> Let’s start by having trains take you to the airport directly…

Why should trains be the only alternative to driverless cars? What is difficult about buying a few buses and start taking people to the airport, today?

Re: We have decided to pause driverless operations across all of our fleets

#129

Post by throwawaymaths »

janalsncm wrote: post #85
melling wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“What incredible inconvenience are we trying to solve?” 40,000 deaths in the United States every year. Hundreds of thousands of costly accidents We can’t get great transportation even in the New York City area. We have 0 miles of high-speed rail, while China built 25,000 it’s great that you want to start building some mass transit, but it’ll take a century if we start now. Let’s start by having trains take you to the…

China has 25k miles of bullet trains and China accounted for a third of the cars sold in 2022. A third. This is a country that limits imports and even limits the number of drivers in some cities. So it’s silly to suggest public transit can replace cars. ETA: Replace all cars. So as long as we will have cars, we might as well make them safer. > getting self driving cars that are all electric will be a big win. I will…

Most of Chinas 25k miles of HSR are at risk.

Re: We have decided to pause driverless operations across all of our fleets

#130

Post by dventimi »

dangus wrote: post #97
melling wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“What incredible inconvenience are we trying to solve?” 40,000 deaths in the United States every year. Hundreds of thousands of costly accidents We can’t get great transportation even in the New York City area. We have 0 miles of high-speed rail, while China built 25,000 it’s great that you want to start building some mass transit, but it’ll take a century if we start now. Let’s start by having trains take you to the…

It won’t take a century if there’s political will. China built a network larger than the rest of the world combined in less than 20 years. Yes, you heard that right, in 2007 there was only one high speed passenger rail service in the entire country.

"...if there's political will."

Well, there isn't political will. If you feel like trying to develop that political will, have at it.

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